


Roadtrip

by hazelNuts



Series: Creampuffweek [2]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Allusions to Past Imprisonment, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, POV Laura, Post S2, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 09:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4386176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelNuts/pseuds/hazelNuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura tries not to think about what this trip might mean for Carmilla, what it might for <i>them<i>. Instead, she focusses on the road to make sure she doesn’t miss her exit.</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>For Creampuff Week - Day 2: Roadtrip</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>(All my Creampuff Week fics are connected)</i>
  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadtrip

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really bad at tagging. If you think I forgot any, please let me know in the comments.

Laura throws a glance at where Carmilla is dozing in the passenger seat. The vampire has her knees tucked against her chest, and is leaning against the door, her head at a weird angle. It can’t be a comfortable position, but Carmilla can sleep pretty much anywhere. She is a cat after all.

She tries not to think about what this trip might mean for Carmilla, what it might for _them_. Instead, she focusses on the road to make sure she doesn’t miss her exit. It’s almost four in the afternoon and they should be getting close to the hotel she’d found.

Finally, she sees a small wooden sign nailed to a tree. She turns onto the small dirt road and hears a grumble when Carmilla wakes up. Her girlfriend might have no trouble sleeping while on the twisting mountain roads, but it turns out that even she can’t sleep when on a bumpy dirt road in a car with bad suspension. She stretches long and sighs when something in her lower back pops.

‘What?’ Carmilla asks when she sees Laura’s smile.

‘Nothing. I just can’t believe I didn’t figure out the cat thing sooner.’

Laura parks the car in front of the hotel. It looks small but in good repair.

‘Maybe it’s a good idea if you check us in, and I’ll take care of the luggage,’ Carmilla suggests as she gets out.

‘Sure.’

Laura watches Carmilla get their bags. She sees the tension in her shoulders, the little frown between her brows and the tight line of her lips. Not for the first time she thinks this is a bad idea. Laura wants to know just as badly as LaFontaine does, but she’s not sure Carmilla does.

‘Carm,’ she begins. She has offered to turn the car around several times, but each time Carmilla had refused.

‘If you ask me one more time if I’m okay with this, I’m going to climb up that mountain alone,’ Carmilla threatens.

Laura holds up her hands in surrender and then leads the way into the hotel. The inside looks even older than the outside, but it’s clean and the woman who greets them looks only a little older than them.

‘Good afternoon. You must be Laura,’ she says. She then turns to Carmilla, who is staying in the shadows. It might have been over three hundred years ago that she’s lived here, but the mountains have a long memory. ‘And you must be her friend.’

After checking in, Laura sleeps for a couple hours, while Carmilla prepares their backpacks for the hike. She doesn’t sleep well, and when Carmilla wakes her, she feels anything but rested.

They sneak out the window. If they had to explain their night-time hike to a probably superstitious hotel owner… Well, they don’t want a repetition of what happened on Christmas.

During the hike, Laura babbles and Carmilla broods. It doesn’t feel right. They barely touch and Carmilla doesn’t say more than the occasional warning for a low hanging branch or tree trunk in their path.

It doesn’t take them as long as they’d thought to reach the ruins. Not even two hours after climbing out the window, they walk through what used to be the entrance.

Carmilla shudders, and Laura wants nothing more than to drag her away. But before she can say anything, Carmilla turns right and stalks into the darkness. Laura turns on her flashlight and follows her. She tries not to think of what has happened here, all the death and pain that lingering in the air and making every shadow seem darker.

Carmilla doesn’t hesitate once. She walks through corridors and turns corners until they reach a hole in the ground.

‘This is it?’ Laura asks.

‘Yes.’ Carmilla sounds indifferent. She looks relaxed in a way that makes Laura belief it’s a show, entirely for _her_ benefit.

Carmilla takes the rope out of her bag and ties it around a large stone, then she jumps down into the darkness. There is a dull thud and the sound of some shuffling around.

‘It’s safe!’ Carmilla calls up.

Laura quickly climbs down and lands next Carmilla.

‘How long?’ she asks.

‘Only a couple weeks.’

Compared to Carmilla’s entire lifespan it’s not long. What’s two weeks out of three hundred years? Out of experience, Laura knows that even a couple days can feel like a lifetime. Anger and sadness wells up in her.

‘I’m fine,’ Carmilla says. She grabs Laura’s hand and squeezes, but lets go before Laura can hold on to her.

‘What are we looking for?’ she asks. The sooner they find it, the sooner they can leave.

‘I don’t remember much aside from the hunger and rage, but I do remember punching the walls several times. Or maybe we can find the manacles.’

Manacles. There had been manacles.

Laura starts looking around the dungeon. She looks for holes in the walls where Carmilla might haves slammed her fist, or even her entire body, into it. She looks for the manacles as well. But all she sees is crumbling stones, moss, dry leaves and the occasional mouse.

‘Got it,’ Carmilla says after only a few minutes.

_Thank god._

Laura turns to find her girlfriend holding two long chains with manacles on the ends of them. The vampire rips them out of the wall and then stuffs them into one of the extra plastic bags they’d brought.

‘Let’s go back.’ Laura has never wanted to a place more than this crumbling castle.

When they’re walking through the main hall again, she grabs Carmilla’s hand. She can feel her wanting to pull loose, but Laura twines their fingers together and squeezes as hard as she can. Carmilla’s shoulders slump and doesn’t let go the entire way back.

When they’re back at the hotel and are lying under the covers, Laura feels exhausted. She pulls a protesting Carmilla closer, pressing her front against her girlfriend’s back and tangling their legs.

‘I don’t need to sleep yet,’ Carmilla grumbles.

‘I do,’ Laura says.

Carmilla sighs and scoots back a little, pressing herself closer to Laura. Laura smiles and kisses the back of Carmilla’s neck. Maybe Carmilla was right. Maybe she really is fine.

~

The next morning when a grumpy Carmilla climbs into the car, Laura feels almost chipper. They have what they came for and now they can go back. LaF will be happy. Perry will have brownies. Kirsch and Danny will probably still be arguing about those fireworks, Danny insisting that it wasn’t the Summers, while Kirsch will swear that “it totally was, bro”. Carmilla is broody, but not melancholic. And, she has just received a dozen homemade cookies from the lady who runs the hotel.

‘You know, Carm,’ she says, stuffing a cookie in her mouth. ‘I made something for this trip.’

Carmilla raises her eyebrows, and waits while Laura roots around in her backpack.

‘Aha!’

‘A cassette tape? Are we back in the nineties now?’

Laura grins and pushes the tape into the radio. When she presses play, turns up the volume and the sound of guitars blasts through the car, Carmilla groans.

‘ _When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the girl that wakes up next to_ ,’ Laura sings and starts the car. She looks over at Carmilla again. The vampire is frowning, but there is an uptick at the corner of her mouth. The start of a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://fandom-madnessess.tumblr.com/).


End file.
